Victor Methos - Plague

“Oh, Clifford hated computers. He didn’t have an email address. He said they were corrupting and taking us away from nature.”

“Suzan, is there anything else you can tell me that you think could help?”

“He lived a hard life and I know people judge him for it. I can see it on your face. And don’t deny it-you nearly pissed your pants when I said he might’ve had a drug problem. But he’s a good man. He takes care of anyone that needs it. Someone broke their leg on one of his tours and he walked over a hundred miles to get help for him. That’s the kind of man he is.”

“I appreciate you telling me that.” She stood up. “I better get going. We’ll call you with any news.”

“When can I see him? They told me on the phone that I wasn’t allowed to see him anymore.”

“That’s just a precaution,” she said. “If it is a virus, we need to expose as few people as possible to it and only those that are necessary.”

Suzan rose and began walking toward the front door. The dog followed her, rubbing against Sam’s leg. She bent down to pet it and rubbed his ear a moment.

“Please tell him,” Suzan said, “that I rescheduled his next two tours. He was worried about that. Tell him they’re rescheduled and he has two months to get better before his next one.”

Sam realized that no one had told Suzan her husband was unresponsive. Or they had, and she wasn’t processing the information. Sam had seen cases of denial so extreme that people had come to the hospital to pick their loved ones up to go home days after they had been informed they had passed away. The mind had many barriers to protect it from harm, and most of them occurred without the conscious part of ourselves even being aware of them.

As she left the house and walked to her car she took out her phone and noticed a message. It was from the hospital. She listened to it and heard Amoy’s voice come on the line. It was a simple message; only one sentence:

“Clifford Lane is dead.”

Duncan Adams went home directly after work and took a long, hot shower. He let the water run over him until his skin grew water-logged and then he quickly soaped himself, shampooed, and conditioned, and then began his routine of lotions and body creams. His father had died of skin cancer so he had developed a detailed skin-care routine.

After he had finished, he dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a sports coat and headed out the door.

He checked his watch as he drove down the interstate and noted that he was twenty minutes late. It would take him ten minutes to get to Circle Lounge Bar and that, he figured, was perfect. A date would be waiting for him there. His friend Hank had set him up in the past to no success but assured him he would fall in love with the woman he was going to meet tonight. However, it was a double date and there wasn’t a doubt in Duncan’s mind that he was just posing as wingman so Hank could date her friend. But still, a date was a date and he’d had a long dry spell in the romantic arena.

Circle Lounge was located on a busy street near a tattoo shop and a dive restaurant. Surprisingly, the best Indian food in all of Maryland was also located on that same block. When he got to the block he looked at Circle Lounge and saw there wasn’t a line out front or even a bouncer and it gave him the impression that is was more of a restaurant than a bar. In fact, the west half of the building was a sushi restaurant that operated until five in the morning.

He parked across the street in paid parking and checked his watch again. He was half an hour late. Most women would tolerate a man that was ten or fifteen minutes late, but half an hour was too much for most. They would complain or make snide comments the entire night. One girl had even thrown her drink in his face.

But it was a trick he had been taught by his father. He had told Duncan that any woman that had the patience and grace not to mention your being half an hour late or let it bother her was one he needed to keep.

Duncan got inside and stood by the entryway to let his eyes adjust to the dim lighting. The restaurant smelled of strong perfume and he guessed trace amounts of scented air were being circulated through the vents to cover the smell of vomit or urine. No matter how classy the bar, over time, they would all stink like bodily fluids from drunks that were unable to make it all the way to the bathroom.

He saw Hank seated at a table on the restaurant side. He had two women with him, one on either side. Hank waved, irritation on his face though he tried to cover it with a smile. Duncan made his way over.

“How are you guys?” Duncan said. He held out his hand to the attractive blonde seated to Hank’s right. “You must be Rebecca,” he said. Rebecca was whom Hank had said he would bring. Duncan then turned to the other woman.

She was also attractive and wearing a revealing black dress with white stockings. She was dipping a toothpick into her martini, trying to get the second olive.

“And you must be Heather.”

She acknowledged him with a quick hello and then went back to the olive in the glass. Duncan sat down next to her.

“Hank’s told me a lot about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Heather said, not turning to him. “Like what?”

“Like he said you were at Georgetown right now getting your masters. In environmental studies, right?”

“Yup.”

Duncan could almost feel her irritation coming off her like an electrical charge. He turned to the menu. Hank sent him a quick glance and then said to Heather, “So, Duncan’s a microbiologist.”

“Hm,” Heather said, nibbling on the olive. “What made you want to do that?” She asked it in a way that let him know she wasn’t curious, more disgusted by the ridiculous career choice.

“The Congo,” Duncan said.

“What do you mean?”

“I was in the Congo as an intern for the United Nations when I was an undergrad. I was there during the Ebola outbreak in Tuwintu.”

“I haven’t heard about it.”

“No? Few people have. There’s so much horror there, an outbreak usually doesn’t catch people’s attention. But this one was particularly savage.”

Duncan glanced to Hank who gave him a look that said, Please don’t tell some gross story and ruin this . Duncan smiled at him.

“See,” Duncan continued, “it infected an entire hospital. The staff, the doctors, the administrators, all the patients…the military was there and not allowing anyone to leave. Anybody that tried was gunned down in front of the exits. The bodies eventually piled so high you couldn’t open the doors.”

The waitress interrupted them to take Duncan’s order and he got a plate of sushi with a sparkling water.

“So,” he continued, “you have about two hundred people stuck in the same building, all of them except five shooting blood out of every orifice in their body. Ebola itself doesn’t kill you; it causes you to bleed to death. But the blood that comes out of people doesn’t look the same as what you see when you get a cut. It’s black and it has the consistency of coffee grounds.”

“Duncan,” Hank interrupted with a grin, “I’m sure the ladies don’t want to hear about that while we’re about to-”

“The blood doesn’t stop,” Duncan said, ignoring him as he took an edamame and peeled it. “It comes out of the eyes, the ears, the mouth. But the worst places are the genitals and anus. When you have a bowel movement the blood comes pouring out and doesn’t clot. It can actually take pieces of organ with it. The patients were finding long strands of a thick, gelatin substance when they went. I didn’t realize until later it was part of their colons and intestines.”

Heather had stopped playing with her olive and had a look on her face like someone had just vomited in her purse.